Discover and read the best of Twitter Threads about #texit
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Meet @Garexit, the official Twitter account of the Gary, Indiana secession campaign. If you live in Gary (or anywhere else) and have never heard of this movement, that's not surprising, as we made it up in early April. 
We decided to use @Garexit to test a couple of the social media automation services we've seen used by other bots, and simultaneously gauge the online activity around various secession movements.
We started with paper.li. This service is a search-based news aggregator. We configured it to gather articles based on the search terms "Indiana secession movements" and "Texas secession", and to link the articles on Twitter.
Everything is Bottier in Texas
We've looked into social media activity related to secession movements before, primarily #Calexit (btw, #CalexitIsStillAKremlinConJob). Let's divert our attention to the Lone Star state and check out automated Twitter traffic around #Texit for a change of pace.
Repeated tweets are one distinct sign of automation, and a Twitter search for #Texit doesn't disappoint. Refining the search to "Good morning GregAbbott_TX. We're ready for a vote on #Texit." reveals a pair of accounts (@JohnDuBose6 and @RCC_JDGIV) that tweet this text every day.
Flights to Russia and embassies in Moscow. Petition drives and fake social media accounts galore.
My dive into three years of support out of Russia for American separatists - and the blowback that came with: thinkprogress.org/russia-texas-c…
My dive into three years of support out of Russia for American separatists - and the blowback that came with: thinkprogress.org/russia-texas-c…
As a quick run-through: U.S. secessionists' ties in Russia date to at least early 2015, when @texasnatmov sent one of its officers to St. Petersburg to hang with the far-right Rodina crowd, and to stump for Texas secession. thinkprogress.org/russia-texas-c…
(A bot network immediately picked up on @texasnatmov's visit to Russia, and pushed out "Free Texas!" messages by the dozen. Even Pravda got in on the game.)
